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PARIS: A Singapore-based organisation announced on Thursday (Jul 30) it will develop an Ebola vaccine dubbed the “most promising” to fight back against a deadly outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo.<\/p>\n
Nearly 1,500 people have died in the conflict-wracked African country from the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, for which there are no vaccines or treatments.<\/p>\n
But there are several different efforts racing to develop a vaccine for the previously rare strain in the hope of stemming the escalating outbreak.<\/p>\n
World Health Organization experts have said a single-dose shot based on the rVSV platform is the “most promising” candidate.<\/p>\n
This is because it uses the same platform as the only officially licensed Ebola vaccine Ervebo, which targets a different strain called Zaire.<\/p>\n
The Singapore-based Hilleman Laboratories announced on Thursday it would advance the rVSV Bundibugyo jab so it can be tested on humans during clinical trials.<\/p>\n
The organisation is a joint venture between the US pharma giant MSD – known as Merck in North America – and the British charity Wellcome Trust.<\/p>\n
“We’re racing to develop a Bundibugyo vaccine and make doses for clinical trials,” Hilleman Laboratories CEO Raman Rao said in a statement.<\/p>\n
MSD developed and manufactured Ervebo and “will serve as a technical adviser” providing “expertise on the rVSV platform”, the statement added.<\/p>\n
It was a joint statement with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), which has pledged funds to the rVSV shot and other Ebola vaccine efforts.<\/p>\n
If early trials are successful and the vaccine is authorised, CEPI and Hilleman said they hoped to “ensure rapid, affordable supply of doses in outbreak-affected countries and low- and middle-income settings”.<\/p>\n
The Ervebo vaccine needs to be stored at ultra-low temperatures. However, the new Bundibugyo jab is hoped to last for months in normal refrigerators, making it cheaper and easier to deploy to remote areas.<\/p>\n
In May, WHO experts cautioned it would likely take seven to nine months before the rVSV vaccine is ready to be assessed in a clinical trial.<\/p>\n
The vaccine uses a modified version of the vesicular stomatitis virus, an animal virus, as a vector to deliver a protein from the Bundibugyo ebolavirus to the human immune system, triggering an immune response.<\/p>\n
The announcement comes a week after the first dose of a different Bundibugyo vaccine being developed by Oxford University was injected into a volunteer during a rapidly launched clinical trial.<\/p>\n
The epidemic in DR Congo is now the third-largest Ebola outbreak on record.<\/p>\n
There have been 3,360 confirmed cases, including 1,487 deaths since May, with the outbreak heavily centred on the northeastern Ituri province.<\/p>\n
Uganda, which borders Ituri, has seen 20 confirmed cases, including two confirmed deaths.<\/p>\n
A viral haemorrhagic fever, Ebola spreads through close contact and infected bodily fluids.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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PARIS: A Singapore-based organisation announced on Thursday (Jul 30) it will develop an Ebola vaccine dubbed the “most promising” to fight back against a deadly…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":72915,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/dam.mediacorp.sg\/image\/upload\/s--VVzbxE8m--\/c_crop,h_1125,w_2000,x_0,y_154\/c_fill,g_auto,h_676,w_1200\/fl_relative,g_south_east,l_mediacorp:cna:watermark:2023-11:afp_watermark_14112023,w_0.1\/f_auto,q_auto\/v1\/mediacorp\/cna\/image\/2026\/07\/30\/000_b9vb7ve.jpg?itok=g70AYIfN","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[684,23039,761,2805,22,14679],"class_list":["post-72914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-news-sg-global","tag-develop","tag-ebola","tag-group","tag-promising","tag-singapore","tag-vaccine","wpcat-2-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=72914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72914\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/72915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=72914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=72914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=72914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}